She had struck
something "common!" And she knew all this was nothing compared to the
puzzles that lay ahead. For from her friend, Madge Deering, whose girls
were well along in their 'teens, she heard of deeper problems. The girls
were so inquisitive. Dauntlessly Madge was facing each month the most
disturbing questions. Thank Heaven, Edith had only one daughter. Sons were
not quite so baffling.
So she had groped her way along.
When her father and Deborah arrived, placidly she asked them what they had
been doing. And when she heard that they had been at a concert on the
Sabbath, though this was far from old-fashioned and something she would not
have done herself, it did not bother her half so much as the fact that
Hannah, the Irish nurse, had slapped little Tad that afternoon. She had
never known Hannah to do it before. Could it be that the girl was tired or
sick? Perhaps she needed a few days off. "I must have a talk with her,"
Edith thought, "as soon as father and Deborah go."
Roger always liked to come here. Say what you would about Edith's habit of
keeping too closely to her home, the children to whom she had devoted
herself were a fine, clean, happy lot. Here were new lives in his family,
glorious fresh beginnings. He sat on the floor with her three boys,
watching the patient efforts of George to harness his perturbed white rat
to Tad's small fire engine. George was a lank sprawling lad of fourteen,
all legs and arms and elbows, with rumpled hair and freckled face, a quick
bright smile and nice brown eyes--frank, simple, understandable eyes.
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